


The Art of Eliciting Truth While Lying

by MotherofDucklings, pomegrenadier



Series: No Darker Than Yours [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mind Games, Sith Politics, Sith Pureblood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-09 14:04:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10413831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MotherofDucklings/pseuds/MotherofDucklings, https://archiveofourown.org/users/pomegrenadier/pseuds/pomegrenadier
Summary: Ravaszhi's loved ones aren't quite sure what to make of each other. And getting Sith to trust each other is not an easy task.Also, the food is terrible.





	

Bronthor's Rest is, by all accounts, the epitome of high-class Alderaanian cuisine. Or at least it's where high-class Alderaanians go to be seen performing nobility. Evren is discovering that the cuisine may—if he's being generous—achieve the glorious heights of utter mediocrity. Maybe.

He pokes dubiously at the artfully arranged, nearly tasteless meat-based lump on his plate. The garnish, a perky little sprig of herbs, has more flavor in one thin leaf than the dish itself has had in three bites.

" _Why_ ," Evren says under his breath.

* * *

Noqma delicately places the tines of her fork point-down in the center of her plate and lets the utensil rest. The animal probably would have made a more interesting dish if they'd bled it into the soup course, but of course that _just wasn't_ _done_ on Alderaan.

And to think she gilded her bone spurs for this poor excuse for a performative venue. Noqma looks about to see what on earth could be taking them so long to remove her plate—and notices the most interesting human imaginable.

Evren. _Straik_.

Not a total loss of an evening, at least. Noqma lets her attention casually glide through the Force, and waits for him to look.

* * *

Evren glances up at the flicker of awareness—ah. Another Sith, evidently about as interested in her meal as he is. Pureblood, fine-wrought gold jewelry, disdain for this embarrassment to the culinary arts in every line of her face.

He sets down his utensils as their eyes meet. He raises an eyebrow, sending out a flare of irritation and disappointment. Acknowledgement of their shared predicament, and ... gods, he isn't certain he particularly wants to socialize with anyone, but she's far more immediately compelling than the Alderaanians and their endless petty games. And it pays to at least keep an eye on his peers.

* * *

Noqma cants her shoulder and tilts her neck just enough to frame the defacement of fine porcelain in front of her.

She wonders if House Tyralta makes as much of a point towards social graces in their breeding as they do towards taste. Her brother sees _something_ in him, after all.

Noqma slips off her seat and approaches Straik. "The enemy of my enemy," she says, raising her wine glass in an ironic salute towards his plate before taking a sip to cleanse her palate. "Noqma Dzwoyat-chul."

* * *

Evren ... was not expecting her to join him at his table, but he recovers after only a moment's internal fumbling. "A pleasure," he says, standing and giving a polite bow, then gesturing to the chair across from his own with a crooked smile. "Evren Straik. Please, I don't think I can face this horror alone."

And then her surname actually registers, and his eyes widen. "You're Ravaszhi's sister."

* * *

Oh, but he's a polite one. Noqma smiles as she watches Straik's expression change, and then laughs, delighted. "Yes," she says, sitting and arranging her delicate skirts. "And you are something of a household name, Lord Wrath."

* * *

_Ravaszhi's family._ Stars, she's—he breathes, resettles his mental shields, and allows himself a moment to gibber internally behind them as he takes his seat again. He knows so little about the Dzwoyat-chul family, about her; he can't quite tell if she's implying that she knows anything substantive about him—and his connection to Ravaszhi—or merely remarking on his general notoriety. Stall, then. He pulls the smile back across his face. "Guilty as charged," he says cheerfully. "What brings you to the Core?"

* * *

He's either misinterpreted her remark about the family's interest in him, or he's pretending to. Interesting. "I had hoped the cuisine," Noqma lies smoothly. "I see my sources aren't the only ones in need of correction."

* * *

"My condolences. My own ill-fated venture, however, is entirely self-inflicted," Evren says, pulling a face and waving a hand at the appalling excuse for a meal before him. "One would think that the upper echelons of Alderaanian society would have better taste."

* * *

"The wine is pleasantly adequate, at least," Noqma says, taking another sip. "Perhaps I'll have some sent back to the capital to remind the good people what's at stake."

* * *

"Eh," he says. "'Adequate' doesn't strike me as sufficiently appealing to stir patriotic sentiment. Unless our intent is to take Alderaan's vineyards, by whatever means necessary, and assist them in exceeding mere adequacy." Evren shrugs and takes a drink of water—allegedly bottled on some idyllic mountainside, not that it tastes any different.

* * *

"No?" she asks mildly, with the vaguest note of false disappointment. "It seems to take so little. I can't imagine the citizenry would know the first thing of improving a vineyard, more's the shame."

She looks out at the view, rolling the wine in her glass a bit.  Most cities look small and squat and dirty from heights like these, but not so on Alderaan. The high domes and spires look like little sugared ices, and Noqma fancies plucking one from its whorled blue-green bed and holding it in her tongue.

It's not unlike the pictures she's seen of the Jedi planet. "Perhaps I'll acquire one of them for Darth Viriddiux. Would you care to help me pick?"

* * *

Did he just accidentally encourage the takeover of an entire vineyard in Ravaszhi's name? Oh hells. He knows Ravaszhi likes alcohol but he thought his tastes ran more towards Mandalorian liquor—not to mention Evren is uncertain whether or not he'd even approve of what could very easily turn into a frivolous and potentially bloody abuse of power ...

 _Redirect_. Evren laughs, deliberately self-conscious, and taps the side of his water glass. "I'm afraid my only contribution would be from a scenic perspective. I've no palate for wine myself."

* * *

It's a poor dish that can't stand on its own without it, but Noqma is already bored with that conversational tack. She resettles to lounge back in her chair, studying Straik over the rim of her glass.

He has most artfully avoided giving up anything interesting about how well he knows her brother. No little comment on Ravaszhi's distaste for the title, his preference for streams over crags, how he's certain to give the land away to the first hapless life form he comes across—

She looks at the tattoos—what little there is to see of them—and the deceptively smooth, human face, and toys with the idea of being crass about it. A direct question might shock Straik, which would at least be amusing.

But the company's mixed, and her brother can't afford the attention.

"Your opinion, then," she says: "a mountain estate, or one in the meadows?"

* * *

Evren considers. Tython is mountainous, isn't it? But would that be pleasantly familiar or an unwanted reminder of everything Ravaszhi left behind?

This is a test. One that he very much does not want to fail. "I could see him being happy with either, if it were quiet and not far from some body of water," Evren says slowly. "But in the end it would have to be his own decision. As entertaining as it might be to present him with a sizeable estate on a whim ..." He shrugs. "I don't want to presume."

Even if this is nothing more than an extended joke—and stars, he hopes it is, hopes that he hasn't unwittingly brought absolute hell down upon some hapless local business and all the people dependent upon it—Ravaszhi has had enough choices taken from him already.

* * *

It's a fair answer, better for Noqma for what it fails to take into account. If Straik thought she were seriously asking for his opinion then there doubtless would have been a tactical appraisal somewhere in there.

Otherwise, he's again given too little to be believable. He's known Ravaszhi longer than Noqma has, than any of the family have, which means he knows what she knows, what the Empire must never know.

Ravaszhi is Jedi. And will always be Jedi, can no more stop being Jedi than he can stop being a pureblood.

It still rankles that he'd had to hear it from Ikoral first. Noqma would have liked few things better than to carve the old wretch's filthy brain from his still-living body and dissect it piece by piece until his useless babbles turned into some semblance of admission that he was unworthy of her brother's _anything_ , let alone the _everything_ he had demanded. Then she'd have fed him his own brain and had the corpse thrown in a bog.

Noqma won't stand for another Ikoral. But if the little hint of concern Straik has betrayed in his talk of _choice_ is anything but genuine, if his reasons for being so evasive are founded in anything else, it might even be as hard for Ravaszhi to accept it than if she let be.

"He won't want for choice, at least," she says mildly. "So many of them have been abandoned lately."

* * *

Evren laughs. "A buffet of options if he wants to go into winemaking, then." He eyes his depressing meal once more, then nudges it a few centimeters away from himself. "How is Ravaszhi?" he asks after a moment. "He seemed well when last we spoke, but ..." Better than well; Evren's fairly certain he's never seen Ravaszhi so happy as on Onderon.

He still worries. And between playing politics with the Dark Council—or avoiding playing politics with the Dark Council, as far as he's able—and running missions for the Hand, and Ravaszhi's own duties, there just—hasn't been time.

... And yes it's only been a few weeks but _still_.

* * *

Noqma barely keeps her eyestalks from going up. It's to be the forward approach, is it? Crass, but alright then. "Well enough, I'm sure, given his strange love of desolate planets. He'll be home from Tatooine soon. Why don't you greet him when comes back?"

* * *

"Is that so?" says Evren. Not too eager, not too careless. "I'll have to finish up here quickly, then." _Why Tatooine?_ But he can't exactly ask.

"... Is it so strange to be drawn to places others might discount as unimportant?" he says instead, and immediately wishes he hadn't. That could be read as an insult. But there's nothing he can do but try to salvage things. "Take Korriban, for instance. It's as unassuming a world as they come, at first glance. And yet it's the heart and soul of the Empire."

* * *

A frustratingly competent conversationalist as well as an abrupt topic-changer. No wonder the family's intelligence has been unable to discover what Straik's intentions towards Ravaszhi are.

"A human perspective," Noqma replies. "Korriban is as pure in the Dark as the void. What grows must compete for the same scarce resources as the flora's natural predators, and the Red Sith evolved capable of feeding directly off the Force itself. Korriban is _Sith_."

* * *

"Exactly," says Evren, smiling thinly. "But to those without the inclination to look deeper, or the ability to see it, Korriban appears to be nothing more than a barren rock. And any planet can be reduced and dismissed in this way, though, of course, perhaps not to such an embarrassingly inaccurate extent. Dromund Kaas, my own homeworld, is, objectively, a soggy mudball."

Hopefully the self-deprecation helps ...

* * *

"A sacred soggy mudball," Noqma says with a bit of sing-song. "I imagine you studied the native species' links to the Sith heritage at some length." To put it delicately, given what she's heard of Tyralta's matriarch, Meliah.

* * *

"Understatement," he says without thinking, and then he clamps his damned mouth shut.

* * *

Noqma leans forward, resting her chin in her palm. Now this could prove interesting. "Oh?"

* * *

"Even the outbred spawn of a has-been House take our heritage very seriously," Evren says. Easier than waiting around for sly digs at his lineage. "And like everything in the Empire, it all comes back to Korriban in the end."

* * *

Another frustratingly vague non-response, when she'd been hoping Straik was about to say something juicy about Tyralta's forays into Sith alchemy. Renning is through, but she's not considered the premier mind on the subject yet. And a not very good attempt at making himself non-threatening, either, if that was even Straik's intention ... but it's opened the most amusing door.

"As all Sith should," Noqma says agreeably. "Should I take you to mean genetic use negotiations are pending?"

* * *

Wait. What—?

Evren blinks at her. "I'm afraid I don't quite follow," he says.

* * *

Noqma shrugs, nonchalance and vague empathy. "You mentioned breeding, and it's been an appropriate amount of time since your little tropical getaway. Should I tell Darth Viriddiux to expect a marriage contract in the near future?"

* * *

Evren gapes at her. What—but he—that's not— "I have no designs upon Ravaszhi's hand in marriage," he manages. "Or—or _breeding_ , or— _no_."

Although ... if Ravaszhi were all right with it as a purely self-defensive arrangement he wouldn't _object_ , it'd be no different from playing master and apprentice to stave off questions about Jaesa—still, _what_.

* * *

His reaction is almost too much, but only almost. "Oh," Noqma says, drawing out the syllable just a beat. "It's casual, then."

* * *

_Oh, so that's how you want to play this_. Evren looks her in the eye and leans forward with a razor smile. "Why the interest? Sounding out your own prospects, Noqma?"

* * *

Struck a nerve, or made him too uncomfortable?

Not the first, based on his previous reaction, but no matter. Noqma knows one thing for certain: this Evren Straik is not the Evren Straik her brother holds in such high regard. Ravaszhi is too young and too Jedi and too _fragile_ for a smile like a predator's maw to be anything but pain to him.

And Straik has given her the best possible opportunity to gauge his intentions.

As much as Noqma wants to smile back with all her teeth, it might tip him off. She takes a sip of wine, and badly suppresses a giggle at his reaction into her glass. "If I am? It's quite common for pureblood families to intermarry to maintain the sanctity of the bloodline." He'd mentioned choice. Perhaps she could play to that. "Ravaszhi might object, but the family is very persuasive. And no one _minds_ the night after a blood ritual, in any case." She uses just the very subtlest emphasis on the word, her tone blithe, her smile convivial, and she watches Straik's face very carefully when she uses her brother's given name.

Waits.

* * *

He laughs low in his throat. Clever reversal. She wants him angry, off-balance. He is. So be it. "Tell me, when you took him in, was it always with the intention of using him as your sex slave? Or was that simply a bonus?" And it's disgusting, it's _vile_ to be speaking of Ravaszhi in such terms, but on the off chance that this isn't some elaborate mind game—

Hells, if it is, it's going nowhere because neither of them is giving an inch. And if it is not ...

"Oh, he might not mind. Not at first," Evren says. "But as for you ... I doubt you'd have much opportunity to form an opinion one way or the other. You would not live to see another sunrise."

He keeps smiling. "And yes, Noqma, that was a threat."

* * *

This time, Noqma does smile, and she smiles with all her teeth, but she doesn't breathe. There is a knot of hate as pure and black as her blood, as the empty void in her chest and it sings _kill him kill him kill him_ before she has to watch her father save his only son from another attempted suicide.

But she's not so young and given to blind passion as that.

This is the Emperor's Wrath. Human, but _Sith_. Dangerous.

Noqma leans in, just as close. "Why?" she asks, just loud enough for him alone.

* * *

The Force has gone so, so quiet, the silence just before a thunderclap shatters the sky. He can either deflect, and learn nothing as they continue this nauseating dance, or offer the truth, anticlimactic and insignificant as it is. At least he'll _know._

"Because Ravaszhi is my friend," he says.

* * *

His friend.

Noqma studies him for a long moment, until her chest unhitches and she breathes out a long sigh.

Followed by a giggle that she only marginally covers with the back of her hand. A light Sith and a pureblood Jedi. Her father should should write an opera.

She picks up her glass again, and raises it in an unironic gesture. She doesn't lean back just yet. This isn't for common ears. "You could have been another would-be _Master_." She loads the word with all her disdain, doesn't bother to hide the faint wrinkle of her nose. There's nothing Sith about the custom, and she'll be glad when it's eventually unmasked as the abomination it is. "I won't watch my brother go through that again. Certainly not over someone he cares for." Not a threat, not unless it has to be. Not an apology, either.

* * *

Relief is cold, almost sickening in its intensity. Worse still is that _again_. Ikoral. Ravaszhi's mutilated hands. Not his family's doing after all, but his master's. Evren tastes copper.

 _You should have done something, anything, you should have helped him_ —

Hate is so much more useful than shame, though, and Evren is more than willing to hate a dead man. "I'm glad we're in agreement," he says coolly. He sits back, takes a small sip of his own drink, and eyes Noqma.

* * *

Noqma watches him just a bit, but not with the same sharpness. The Force is practically purring; he's not a threat to her brother.

She sits back, finally, rolling her the tension out of her neck. No one's terribly sure when they actually met, beyond that they knew each other as recently as that debacle on Tatooine. "Did you know my brother as a child?"

There's emotion in her voice—but ah well.  The game is up, and what girl who lost her mother wouldn't want some knowledge of the baby brother who survived?

* * *

She sounds genuinely interested. Even, perhaps, concerned. Which is—also a relief. Further confirmation, and the Force reflects it.

Evren takes a breath, relaxes slightly. "No. We met while he was undercover for the Jedi, on Tatooine." Not so long ago, all things considered, no matter how quickly the galaxy shifts or how much they've both changed since.

. . . Sometimes he does wonder, though. If things had gone differently—in some other life, if he'd been—if they'd known each other longer. He—hopes that at least a few of the disasters they've faced might have been prevented.

* * *

A shame. There's no one who knows, then—

But Noqma can picture it. He'd have been the type of child to bring her small, slimy little creatures in an attempt to please her once he knew she fancied a laboratory. He'd have found a way to scale the walls so that he could tinker with the anti-orbital turrets.

He'd have loved that gauche droid of their mother's even then, no doubt. Noqma resists the urge to rub at her temples. Over twenty years and she hadn't given a thought to the appalling thing, and now Ravaszhi had it walking about as bold as you please. She likes to think he'll teach it some manners, but she isn't holding her breath.

"His nursery room went untouched for over twenty years." No harm in that getting about. The family has a reputation for leaning towards the sentimental sides of passion. "We had it redone when we found out he was alive."

* * *

"... I'm glad that he has you. That you found him," Evren says softly. Ravaszhi has said they treat him well. He'd wanted to believe it. A family that cares for him, worries about him, fights for him. Ravaszhi was hungry—no, _starving_ for that, when they first met.

But he's healing. Bit by bit. That, Evren believes.

* * *

Almost sentimental enough to be unseemly.

She's doing a bit better, but she's not the Emperor's Wrath, either. Nobody who's anybody is watching her.

Noqma drums her immaculate fingernails on the tablecloth, aware she has no artful excuse for asking this question. But it just wouldn't do for Ravaszhi to lose one of his few Sith allies, nor one of his his fewer friends. "Would he be as glad for you, having Tyralta?"

* * *

His bark of a laugh is too loud and too harsh for the refined atmosphere of the restaurant. A few people turn to look, then even more swiftly turn away. Evren chokes down another unsteady giggle and drags a brilliant, rakish grin onto his face. "My familial situation is a bit complicated," he says breezily. A blatant lie, it's simple, he _hates_ them, but this isn't—

And he hasn't told Ravaszhi any of it because there's nothing anyone can _do_ about it. It doesn't matter. And Ravaszhi doesn't need his whining.

* * *

An unsurprising reaction, given the rumors about the old bat heading his family, but as Noqma isn't in a position to offer Evren adoption—and a human in the family, _really_ —that count is a bit moot.

Still. Someone had better ensure he doesn't get killed.

She fishes a little vial out from one of her many hidden pockets and pushes it across the table with one finger. "Synthesized pheromones common to everything that evolved indigenously on Alderaan. It wouldn't do for you to die on official business."

* * *

Steady ground. Evren takes the vial between thumb and forefinger and raises an eyebrow at Noqma, considering. He's fairly certain he's just been accepted and recruited as an _asset_ for Ravaszhi-protection. But all he says is, "Olfactory camouflage? Clever. Your own creation, I take it?"

* * *

Noqma smiles, genuinely pleased, but she doesn't take the credit. It would disturb Ravaszhi to learn what exactly certain aspects of her research entails, and the littlest bit of information could be the giveaway. "I do hope you find it useful," she says, standing.

* * *

Evren stands as well, pocketing the vial. "I've no doubt I will," he says. "Thank you." He tosses a credit chit onto the table, overtipping by a horrendous margin—the food may be abysmal but that's hardly the server's fault; he'll avenge his poor taste buds with an excoriating review instead. "It was an honor to meet you, Lord Noqma. My regards to all your house."

* * *

"Lord Wrath." She doesn't add her own regards—it would only be rude, now that she knows—but she leans in just enough to be politic, and kisses the air at his cheeks. "Do come visit when Darth Viriddiux comes home," she says, and glides towards the exit.

**o.O.o**


End file.
